


avengers? assemble!

by togallifreywego



Series: togallifreywego's one-shots [2]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crack, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, Nebula & Tony Stark Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Team as Family, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange Parenting Peter Parker | Supremefamily | Strange Family, marvel make the avengers happy challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togallifreywego/pseuds/togallifreywego
Summary: In which Stephen decides they need new bookshelves and the entire team goes to IKEA (because sometimes I just need to write some tooth rotting fluff)
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Carol Danvers, Cassie Lang & Ava Starr, Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Cooper Barton & Lila Barton & Nathaniel Pietro Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Nebula & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Ava Starr, Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Scott Lang/Hope Van Dyne, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Series: togallifreywego's one-shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543576
Kudos: 44





	avengers? assemble!

In hindsight, bringing the entire team to IKEA was probably not the greatest idea. 

In Stephen's defense, they desperately needed a new set of bookshelves and, as soon as he even breathed the name IKEA, Tony had gotten so adorably excited ("It's such a good team bonding idea, Stephen! Besides, if Heaven exists, it's just a never-ending IKEA shop!") and what sort of cold-hearted person would Stephen be if he actually had a hope of resisting his boyfriend's killer set of puppy dog eyes? Honestly, Stephen's just lucky that Tony's never felt inclined to take over world - one look from those puppy dog eyes has Stephen willing to move planets to make Tony happy. Taking the whole team to IKEA might prove slightly harder, but if it'll make Tony happy, then he'll do it. He feels he's made the right decision as Tony and Peter speed around the compound rounding everybody up. What could go wrong, right? 

\--------

 _What could go wrong?_ Famous last words. Stephen supposes he only has himself to blame, but the kid-in-a-candy-store look that spreads across Tony's face as they step into the shop makes the prospect of an entire morning of the team rushing around like overgrown toddlers, buying chairs that they'll probably never get around to assembling, slightly easier to swallow.

He should probably have taken a picture of the cute expression on Tony's face, he thinks, watching Scott and Cassie, a.k.a chaos in human form, try to convince a dubious Ava that she should start a collection of IKEA stuffed toys. Behind them, Nebula eyes a fake plant and asks Tony if she should plant a grenade there in case they have to fight someone. Stephen suppresses a sigh. At least the pictures that will doubtless pop up all over social media will keep Peter and Tony amused all night. 

Natasha, ever the responsible one, stops at a stand full of IKEA stationary to start making a list of things to buy. 

"Oh, they have tiny pencils!" cries Thor, prompting at least five other shoppers to stare. A passing teenager whips out her mobile phone to take a picture. "Bruce, I'd like a tiny pencil!" 

"They're free, love. Take as many as you want," says Bruce, bemusedly. However much Stephen enjoys talking science with Bruce Banner (and stealing tea bags from the man's rather large collection of herbal teas), he would gladly murder the man then and there. They've only just arrived at the living room section and Thor is already struggling to carry the several dozen IKEA pencils that he's acquired. It is going to be a long morning.

\--------

Forget long morning, it's shaping up to be a very long day. Stephen's lost Val and Loki somewhere around the kitchen section; lost the Barton kids, Cassie, Peter and Ava in the toy section; talked Tony out of buying a neon blue sofa bed, and to be honest, if someone held a gun to his head right now, he couldn't tell them where Nebula had gone. To top it all off, Stephen would bet on the fact that nobody actually remembered to pick out the bookshelves that they came to buy in the first place. He somehow finds it in him to feel sorry for the other shoppers, who came to IKEA for a pleasant shopping experience and are probably doubting the sanity of everyone in their group right now. Thor is dragging a flatpack desk chair, looking like he's won the lottery; Bucky's trying to convince Steve that they need a bed with drawers underneath it ("So I can get to my weapons easily if someone comes into our room at night!") and Sam's pushing a trolley loaded with - bizarrely - a set of flat-pack bunk beds. Earth's mightiest heroes, everyone. To top it all off, they're nearly at the end of a _very_ long checkout queue when Natasha, who is probably the only reason Stephen hasn't completely lost his mind today, remembers that they've lost half the team and should probably go and find them. 

\--------

They find Brunnhilde and Loki in the kitchen section, juggling knives for an audience of overexcited children.

"Okay, I'm filming this," says Carol firmly, whipping out her phone. "I'm sending it to Nick." Stephen sighs, resigning himself to twenty minutes of waiting as one of the kids watching yells, "Do a flip!" Loki obliges. The crowd of watching kids scream their approval and yep, there goes Stephen's hearing. Tony gives him a long suffering look which probably means _I was picturing a fun, productive team bonding activity where we ate cinnamon rolls in the café and discussed interior design and this wasn't exactly what I had in mind_. Stephen placates him with a quick kiss and Tony, the lucky bitch, wanders off to find Nebula. Stephen makes a mental note to a) try to stop falling for Tony's puppy dog eyes every damn time and b) never, _ever_ even breathe the name IKEA within earshot of any of the Avengers as long as he lives.

\--------

Tony hunts Nebula across the bathroom, kitchen and study areas - really, it doesn't matter that she's a trained spy and assassin, it shouldn't be this hard to find a blue, alien cyborg in a sea of decidedly not blue or alien humans. 

"Nebs!" cries Tony, finally finding his 'space child', as Peter likes to call her, staring at one of the model homes in confusion.

"Don't they mind having people walking round their house all the time?" she asks. "I would." 

"No, Bluebell, nobody _lives_ there. You can go around the rooms to see what the furniture would look like in a real house," he explains. "You wanna go in?" She nods shyly. "Good, because we _were_ actually supposed to be looking for a bookshelf and Steph might kill me if we go home without one." 

\--------

They emerge ten minutes later, Nebula carrying an armful of 'Earth things' that had fascinated her. Tony had, of course, melted at the curious look in Nebula's eyes - maybe Stephen has a point about him spoiling the kids, but who is he to refuse Nebula when she gives him that look? - brushing aside her protests to buy her at least five different fake plants and a spatula - Stephen's probably not going to be happy about that one - he can almost hear the "but she doesn't like to bake, love!" inside his head already. And of course, they didn't actually pick out a bookshelf, so if the spatula doesn't prompt Stephen to file for divorce, their lack of a decent bookshelf will be the deciding factor. 

"Come on, you, we'd better go find the others!" said Tony reluctantly. "I've just got a text from Peter - everyone's in the toy section and he's wondering if he should send out a search party for us."

\--------

 _Strange cut my show short and dragged me away? Maybe I will put a lock on Banner's tea bag box_ , thinks Loki. He'd been having an almost shameful amount of fun having an admiring audience. Yes, they were just Midgardian kids, but it's the skill of his tricks that counts. He's definitely getting bored now, though. Reduced to watching the Barton children and Cassie Lang try to explain the rules of their new game to a less-than-impressed Ava Starr and a faintly bewildered looking Peter Parker, he's about to wander off and risk a pissed off Stephen Strange - never a pretty sight, however much Stark tries to say otherwise - when salvation arrives in the form of the local 'Blue Meanie' and Tony Stark himself.

"So, I know the cinnamon rolls in the café are amazing," Tony shouts, trying to be heard over Cassie (loudly) showing Carol the toy she was going to buy, Stephen trying to find out _why the fuck do you need a spatula, Nebs, we have at least three already!_ and Scott attempting to convince Ava to buy a stuffed toy rat. "Shall we pay and go there?" There's a general hum of agreement and Loki breathes a sigh of relief. He is starving to death over here. 

\--------

You would think that, in a team consisting of several genius scientists, a handful of aliens, two super soldiers and at least four fully trained assassins, that they could put together a couple of bookcases, right? Wrong. 

"Come on, we're the _fucking Avengers_!" says Wanda encouragingly. "We've fought aliens, HYDRA and robots! I'm sure we can put a couple of bookcases together!" Yeah, not going to happen, thinks Stephen. They've been back home for _two hours_ and they've built and rebuilt the bookcases at least three times, and yet they've fallen down, without fail, every single time someone's tried to balance anything heavier than Nebula's new spatula - which is quickly becoming her new favourite 'Earth thing' - on one of the shelves. Maybe if the instructions were in Swedish it would help: the Asgardians can pronounce it flawlessly, yet, as Brunnhilde puts it, that "doesn't mean we've suddenly become fucking architects!" 

"Let's try one more time, and then we can watch a YouTube video for it if we fail," decides Peter firmly. He stuffs another cinnamon roll in his mouth and grabs a screwdriver. Stephen wishes that he had even a third of Peter's optimism - if they can't put a shelf together with instructions that look, at first glance, to be relatively simple, Stephen doubts that they'll fare much better using a YouTube video. 

For the thirtieth time in the past two hours, Stephen wonders how Natasha and Ava, who can both probably assemble and disassemble any gun on the planet without even _looking_ at what they're doing, can somehow fail to assemble a bookcase when using a screwdriver, a hammer, a magnifying glass and three pages worth of instructions. 

How did his life get this chaotic?

\--------

"I'm sure it'll hold," says Hope doubtfully, eyeing the slightly rickety result of three hours of hard work. "I wouldn't put anything too heavy on it, though."

"I wouldn't put anything on it _at all_ ," says Ava, prodding the bookcase rather warily and wincing as it wobbles. "I take that back, I'm not sure it'll hold if you even breathe on it too hard." 

"Thank you for your optimism, Ava," drawls Bill - probably the only person alive who could talk to the touchy spy like that and get away without being brutally murdered. "It's really inspiring." Ava gives him the _I'm a fully trained assassin and I will absolutely kill you_ look that's probably given people nightmares in the past. Bill just throws a cinnamon roll at her. 

"At least it's up, you pessimists," replies Tony determinedly. "I'd say this is cause for a Domino's and a movie night, wouldn't you?"

\--------

Despite Peter trying to talk them into watching Star Wars - like he did pretty much every night - they've decided on Back to the Future. As usual, they've all eaten enough pizza to feed a small army and most people are asleep before the movie has even reached it's halfway point. Tony's currently dozing happily, head on Stephen's shoulder with Peter draped across them both. Stephen doesn't have the heart to wake anybody up and explain that the distant crash that they'd taken for Vision trying to bake with Nebula's new spatula, in fact, been the bookshelves falling over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that its kind of choppy and i don't really go into much detail before going to a time skip but i didn't really wanna get boring and be like '+ then they walked through the shop' so sorry if theres too many time skips or it gets annoying (once again i had all the scenes planned out in my head and couldnt find the right words to phrase them, lol)  
> also, im not very good with grammar stuff like commas and which sentences need 'that' in them and which don't, and I feel like that's very much on show in this chapter. I dont have a beta so im sorry if the grammar is not good(feel free to comment if you find any errors and ill fix them!)


End file.
